fem-inism and mental health: discourses of discontent politicizations at the beginning of the Latin American feminist press

Abstract

The aim of this article is to identify and describe discourses of feminist politicization of women discontent in the "Mental Health" section of the historical archive of fem (a pioneer publication in the Latin American feminist press, particularly in Mexico), within the framework of the international Women's Liberation Movement. For this, a selection of articles from the historical archive of fem is made, followed by a thematic analysis and a theoretical reading from the works of: Carol Hanisch (1970), in the context of the claim of “the personal is political”; Mabel Burin (1990), based on the tension-conflict model in understanding women's discontent; and bell hooks (1997) in the critique of personalization of the political in the drifts of the feminist movement. From these articulations, the relationship between discontent, the personal and the political in the feminist movement is addressed. The results show different ways of naming the personal experience of discomfort, as well as some of the main criticisms and political narratives spread in fem as feminist alternatives for their understanding and approach. The study recovers the knowledge produced from the press and the Latin American feminist dissemination about women's mental health, as well as provides a historical view of the transformative potential of feminism in personal and political terms.